Sam Sibley: Day 7

Happy afternoon everyone!

After our emotional tiredness of last night, today is going by fantastically. Sam is doing well. He still prefers Dad, but his aversion to me seems to be moving more into "she's the party killer" than fear. He is telling us more and more at mealtimes. Ted said that this morning, one of the sweet Colombian older girls that is here being adopted by an Italian couple wanted to play with Sam and he wasn't having it. He looked for Dad and ran. Preference is always a bit exciting in this faze.

So we woke up to beautiful weather this morning, so it was time to Montserrat!! You Fana people have done this (and done it again like 4 times for each family member that comes to visit you..) so it was time to do it AGAIN!!

But first, it is important to attend to the morning business, which in this case was a date for Ben and me to Juan Valdez.

Sidebar: I don't get much looks holding/ walking with Sam or Lucas.. but me the white lady walking down the street with my little black boy gets a lot more looks. Colombians come in every color, but not as many Afro-Colombians in Bogota.. so now there are like two of us walking down the street to stand out. I think the construction dudes on Calle 15 lost a solid 30 seconds of work time when me and Batman marched by.

Anyway, Juan Valdez guy now chuckles every time I march in with a kid.. and he knows I usually need to hear the peso amount twice because I'm focused so much on the first number that he says that I usually miss the "cien" number that follows it. I do okay in Spanish when I pick the topic (ordering coffee or telling somebody my problem) but catching the response in real-time is more challenging. It's a metaphor for life: Rockstars at speaking our agenda. Novices at listening.

This morning, Ben branched out in his choice and went for Mandarin.



Then we flagged ourselves a cab!



A little word about cabs. Cab drivers find us very amusing, generally. Today, our guy was flying down the mountain at a pretty good clip, and Lucas and Ben decided to yell like they were on a rollercoaster.. which made the guy laugh pretty hard. There aren't any child locks, or really even restraints, so you have to be on Ben to ya know.. not open the door. Today we witnessed our first highway congestion from an accident, and I decided I would not like to be at the mercy of the first responders in a foreign country (which I basically already knew, but this was today confirmed).. so the ambulances are blaring behind us.. and nobody cared much. Once we got up to the scene, you could see it was nothing truly serious.. but you didn't see a lot of haste from the rest of the road to get out of the way.

So we arrived at Montserrate after all of that.. excited to cable car it to the top!!



We would have gotten some pictures of our cable ride to the top, but we were packed in like Sardines and Ben was having attitude.

Once at the top, we marched around and looked at the views of the city. The boys even did really well quietly walking around the Catholic church at the top, which is somewhat of a miracle if you know them.



We decided to be bad parents and let each of the boys pick our a little something from the market at the top of the mountain.. which actually made life a little easier because that gave us leverage to take stuff away.

Sidebar: Lucas and Ben have been total rockstars, considering. These are two small boys who were uprooted and put on a long flight to live in a hotel and be surrounded by people they don't understand, while getting a baby brother in the course of one week. The fact that the worst we have dealt with is whining/crying drama at mealtimes is quite positive.

Anyway.. Sibleys don't really barter. We know we end up paying more. We know we are being taken advantage of. We know we could pay less... and really.. we don't care. If we were talking big money here then maybe.. but I know something is worth about $.80 and you say $2.00.. I don't really care. You are a shop owner in a struggling country, and it seems ridiculous to me in all that I, the doctors wife, with my healthy children, whom I have been blessed to be able to keep safe and provide education and clean water and nutritious food.. to haggle with you over $2.00. Take it sweetheart, and keep your roof, feed your kiddos, and parent your children. Here, have about $5.00 just for cause. Bless you.

So now we move on to my love of street food. I LOVE street food. I know I may be growing a worm somplace in my intestine, but will still love street food. The kids are not nearly as excited, but Sam was.. and he wanted in on this. You are seeing fried plantains with sugar, mozzarella, and raspberry spread, as well as a rather amazing grilled corn, and a relleno stuffed with corn meal, beans, chicken, and slow cooked over fire in a banana leaf. I have modern appliances and don't serve up such yumminess.



Since Lucas and Ben weren't as much into Mom and Dads food excitement, they entertained the area with some sweet super hero moves. Also, Ben has no personal space.



After we ate our weight in cornmeal rellenos, we walked around the complex. Ben was getting tired and crabby so we choice to Ergo him, which was no small deal since we were 8,000 ft up and he weighs more than 40 lbs. The climb down was no big deal, but getting back up had me super winded. Hence why I'm leaning against stuff a lot.





Right now I have two sleeping little boys and Ted is out with Lucas for his afternoon juice date time. Tonight, Alecia is coming over again so Ted and I can head out! On the list for tonight is "Wok", its an all upscale Asian spot just near Crepes and Waffles. It has come to us highly recommended. Ted is only here for 5 more days, we are trying to make the most of it before I need to go it alone for awhile.

Peace out!